1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for measuring, and more particularly to an automated measuring system and method which can encode required measurement procedures for an object to be measured and assign a suitable measurement apparatus to each dimension of the object.
2. Background of the Invention
Product quality is a crucial factor in a manufacturing enterprise's success. In order to seize potential markets and improve competitiveness, most manufacturing enterprises continuously strive to improve product quality and corresponding services.
It is standard practice for an enterprise to take samples from its own manufactured products and measure dimensions of the samples in order to determine whether the products are acceptable. Traditional measuring methods use length measurement tools such as calipers to measure all dimensions of the samples one by one. Then corresponding statistical calculations are performed manually. These measuring methods are prone to error, because of the low accuracy of manually operated measurement tools and because of human error in the statistical calculations. The accuracy of the final data obtained may be very low. Further, these measuring methods are generally time-consuming, and the corresponding labor costs can be high.
With the ongoing development of computer science, computers are now in widespread use in the art of measuring products. The conventional means adopted is to link automated measurement apparatuses to a computer. The computer obtains measured data from the measurement apparatuses, and runs corresponding application software programs (statistical procedures) in order to perform statistical calculations based on the measured data. Thus human error in the statistical calculations is greatly reduced. However, the location where the actual measurements are performed must generally be the manufacturing site of the products.
In recent years, multiple users of a typical enterprise's computer system have been able to store electronic data on a closed client/server architecture, such as a local area network or a wide area network. Further, with the recent rapid expansion of the Internet, the opportunity for collaborative efforts has greatly increased, and professional measuring departments are now found in many enterprises. Measurement workers and customers of an enterprise may be scattered around the world, yet they can rapidly transmit measurement information and measured data through a variety of networks. The measurement information provided by a customer usually comprises design drawings of an object to be measured and drawing specifications. The professional measuring department then receives the object, and proceeds to measure all the dimensions of the object according to the measurement information. All these apparatuses and procedures overcome the traditional restriction that the location where the actual measurements are performed must be the manufacturing site. However, the above-described means can-not provide encoding of required measurement procedures for the object, and can-not provide automatic assigning of suitable measurement apparatuses for measurement of each dimension of the object.
What is needed is a system and method that can overcome the foregoing shortcomings.